Talk:Taxila

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[edit] Taxila was never a place of Hindu learning

To say that taxila has been a place of Hindu learning is to mock history. I was born in the city and am well versed in the history of the city. I would request the contributor to substantiate their claim.

I would you request you to come up with any other name, ancient or modern, for "Taxila" other than the original Takshashila which is in Sanskrit, the language of Hindus, before trying to dismiss its Hindu heritage. Even Taxila is an anglicized version of Takshashila.

221.135.246.153 16:02, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

You may have been born and raised there but that doesn't make you an expert in ancient history of taxila. It is a well documented fact that Taxila was a place of learning well before buddhism was introduced during the reign of Asoka and the religion prevelant before that time was hinduism, tell history like it happened. Please do not pick the facts that you like and omit the ones that you don't. The famous sanskrit scholar Panini(much of the work in sanskrit grammar was done by him at Taxila. Kautilya(the mentor of Chandragupta Murya) wrote his Arthshastra while he was a teacher at Taxila and the list goes on. The fact that Taxila became a seat of Buddhist learning during the reign of Asoka and Kushanas is well known to historians the world over. Read the history before making ignorant and unsubstantiated claims.

Hindu word itself came after Arabic warriors came in India. The city and its culture was flourishing long before that so one can not relate the culture or city with Hinduism. In fact current Hindu belief is a lot deviated from the original Vedic culture.

Really???? the world Hindu(from Sindhu, it literally means the inhabitants of the land of Sindhu or Indus) created and used for centuries by the ancient persians, the immediate neighbors to the west(i.e Zorastrian Persia or modern Iran). It was they who passed on this name to the Arabs and the rest of the world, centuries before the Arab/Islamic conquests July 30, 2006

[edit] first university

(1) Extract from a letter of 22 October 1944, from Prof. F.W. Thomas, C.I.E., M.A., Ph.D., F.B.A. I have never supposed that these 'Universities' were anything but organised groups of independent teachers, such as you describe, without common buildings or action....Real Universities, with colleges (sc. monasteries) and endowments were created by Buddhism. These, of course, Nālandā, Vikramaśīla, etc., were primarily religious and sectarian, and the students and teachers were monks or aspirants to monkhood. But that, as we know from Hiuen-tsang and I-tsing, did not preclude a keen interest in general studies, literary, scientific, and philosophic, including even subjects specially Brahmanic, such as the Veda. In numbers and fame and in splendid buildings and rich endowments these were, of course, great institutions, but they do not belong to the early centuries A.D. In Central Asia and China the Buddhists usually founded pairs of (real) colleges, one for religion and doctrine (dharma), the other for contemplative philosophy (dhyāna). These were about contemporaneous with Nālandā. (2) From Education in Ancient India (1934) by Prof. Altekar, pp. 79–80. In ancient India for several centuries the relations between the teacher and the student were direct, i.e. not through any institution. Buddhism had its own Sanghas or monasteries, which developed into education institutions in the course of a few centuries; but, as far as Hinduism is concerned, we do not so far find any regular education organisations or institutions till about the beginning of the ninth century A.D. For centuries Hindu teachers like Hindu Sanyāsins had no organised institutions. We come across several Jātaka stories about the students and teachers of Takshaśilā, but not a single episode even remotely suggests that the different 'world renowned' teachers living in that city belonged to a particular college or university of the modern type. Marshall, John [1951] (1975). Taxila. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass.

It may be observed at the outset that Taxila did not possess any colleges or university in the modern sense of the term. It was simply a centre of education. It had many famous teachers to whom hundreds of students flocked for higher education from all parts of northern India. But these teachers were not members of any institutions like professors in a modern college, nor were they teaching any courses prescribed by any central body like a modern university. Every teacher, assisted by his advanced students, formed an institution by himself. He admitted as many students as he liked. He taught what his students were anxious to learn. Students terminated their courses according to their individual convenience. There were no degree examinations, and therefore no degrees or diplomas. Altekar, Anant Sadashiv [1934] (1965). Education in Ancient India, Sixth Edition, Revised & Enlarged, Varanasi: Nand Kishore & Bros.

Cite cop is vandalizing the site, editing and deleting referenced material sep3, 2006
CiteCop is making damn well sure that sources cited verify the text in question.CiteCop 23:16, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

The source cited in "Early Hindu" refrence is encyclopedia britannica which says that Kautilya was a "Hindu" statesman and a teacher at "taxila" so it was associated with brahminism and early hindu learning before, during and after the reign of Nandas(the dynasty that was defeated by chandragupta with the help of kautilya, who in turn was avenging the fact that he was exiled from Magadha by the Nandas, and spent most of that time at Taxila) All the stupas excavated at Taxila are from either during the later years of Ashoka's reign(two generations after chandragupta) or from a period after that, as is clear from the unesco refrence cited by you. The only religion prevelant before that was hinduism. Taxila was a centre of learning during that period as is clear fron the britannica and Ayurveda(charaka) refrences. We cannont call them Vedic because the late vedic period ended long before Kautilya and Panini lived. Scholars associated with Taxila lived after the 7th century B.C. If we are going to use contemporary terms like Buddhist to describe the Ashoka and Kushan periods, then we have to use Early Hindu(used by most historians to describe this period) for the period prior to that. Cite cop you should be banned for deleting refrenced material your own UNESCO refrence doesn't even use the term buddhist centre of learning but we are all smart enough to know that a stupa is a buddhist monument. Aparently Cite cop you don't know that Hindu statesman(kautilya), ayurvedic scholar(charaka) and sanskrit grammarian(panini) means they were Hindu gentlemen or brahmins to be precise. Or do you think they were all Buddhists???

So now the question is why did you delete those refrences and in addition to that you also deleted the words "Early Hindu"(since charaka, panini and kautilya etc. lived after the late vedic period and the epic age)???????? They pretty well expain that these gentlemen were "Hindu" statesmen or Brahmin scholars........i could cite hundereds of history books published during the last century with refrences that say exactly the same thing. I am not a Hindu nor do i have any association with Taxila but as a student of history the ignorance of people like you is really disturbing.

So Cite Cop, is this another attempt at vandalism or not??? Sept 4, 2006

UNESCO was my source. UNESCO said Buddhist so I said Buddhist.

The entry for Taxila in your online Britannica is strangely silent on the issue.

CiteCop 04:15, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Heading

Why is the image at the top of the page cover the entire width of the page? This is fairly nonstandard. --Whiteknox 20:25, 27 November 2006 (UTC)